THE USER EXPERIENCE. A story about when I felt followed by the store clerck

THE USER EXPERIENCE. A story about when I felt followed by the store clerck

Last week I read the next post in some social network: “Get into a store and the clerk be like Welcome with a voice tone like saying: We are watching you, we know you are going to steal something.” I laughed immediately when I remembered all those times when I´ve got into a department store or boutique and felt uncomfortable for having a store clerk following me, watching closely all that I do, and saying the seventeen benefits of every product I touch, while I hear a voice that comes out from somewhere, saying over and over again promotions I don't care about. I can't do anything else but get out of the store as quickly as posible.

The marathonic meeting between the Starbucks founders in which they decided if it would be allowed or not to smoke in the facilities of the coffee shop is already a myth. And is precisely a very positive user experience what this brand handles to a point of perfection, they write your name on the cup, they give you free Wi-Fi, all in order to make you feel good, so you don’t have any problem to spend 5 dollars for some coffee that could cost 2.

It seems that a well done user experience is the pot ant the end of the rainbow when we are talking about the customer interaction. Nowadays is not enough with having a good product with a lot of benefits, nice design and and attractive price to get us.

Getting into a store has to be a nice experience, starting with the lighting of the fitting room, or the volumen of the music, up to the protocolary kindness of the employees at the store that bother on asking your name so they don't have to call you “girl”.

I remember that in some store there was a button on the fitting room which you can push in case you need some help, I thought that it was a great idea, therefore there's no clerk asking you every two minutes if everything is okay, or in the other hand, the client having to get dressed and look for a different size to get back on the fitting room. It would be ideal if all the stores had the possibility of being more connected with the customer, so the customer service wouldn't be invasive and uncomfortable, but neither distant or indifferent.

They are statistics to measure if promotions and sells were successful, but it would be very useful that the stores could measure how nice is a store for the customer, or what products we are interested in, or what we think about the attention received and if one of the mentioned things is the reason that made us decide to buy or not. When a store achieves to detect all that experience apparently unquantifiable but crucial, one could say that the circle is finally closed, which starts with merchandising and customer service and some other ideas which efficiency can't be clear ¿or is it?